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Centralization in phonetics refers to a vowel being a central vowel, the shift of a vowel in this direction, or to a vowel being more central than some point of reference. The diacritic for this in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the dieresis, . For example, to transcribe rounded and unrounded near-close central vowels, the symbols may be used. (Occasionally will be seen, by analogy with , but this is not accepted by the IPA.) Before the letters were added to the IPA in 1993, the symbols were used for these values. In the majority of languages described as having an , the vowel is actually central, and would be better transcribed as . However, this symbol is not commonly used, perhaps because it disagrees with the sound value of umlaut รค in the Germanic languages. Instead of the diacritic for centralization, the advanced or retracted diacritics may be used. See also mid-centralized vowel.
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